Event Details

Lea Santos, Yeshiva University, NYC

Lea Santos, Yeshiva University, NYC

"Relaxation and thermalization of isolated quantum many-body systems"

Experiments in optical lattices have enhanced the interest in the non-equilibrium dynamics of isolated quantum systems. New breath has been brought, for example, to the old pursuit of deriving thermodynamics from first principles. One of the main questions in this context refers to the conditions for an isolated quantum system initially far from equilibrium to reach thermal equilibrium. A general picture has been developed associating chaos with the onset of thermalization. I will discuss this relationship as well as the role of the initial state. Thermalization may not occur in the chaotic regime if the initial state is close to the edge of the system spectrum, and it may occur in integrable systems provided the initial state is sufficiently delocalized.